Deployment of visual attention before sequences of goal-directed hand movements.

Full Abstract

We examined the allocation of attention during the preparation of sequences of manual pointing movements in a dual task paradigm. As the primary task, the participants had to perform a sequence of two or three reaching movements to targets arranged on a clock face. The secondary task was a 2AFC discrimination task in which a discrimination target (digital 'E' or '3') was presented among distractors either at one of the movement goals or at any other position. The data show that discrimination performance is superior at the location of all movement targets while it is close to chance at the positions that were not relevant for the movement. Moreover, our findings demonstrate that all movement-relevant locations are selected in parallel rather than serially in time, and that selection involves spatially distinct, non-contiguous foci of visual attention. We conclude that during movement preparation--well before the actual execution of the hand movement--attention is allocated in parallel to each of the individual movement targets.

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Author information

Author/s: Baldauf, Daniel (D); Wolf, Martin (M); Deubel, Heiner (H);

Affiliation: Department Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Leopoldstasse 13, 80802 München, Germany. daniel.baldauf(-atsign-)campus.lmu.de

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Vision research (Vision Res), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Dec; vol 46 (issue 26) : pp 4355-74

Dates: Created 2006/11/01; Completed 2007/01/18;

PMID: 17034829, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Attention - physiology
Discrimination (Psychology) - physiology
Female
Hand - physiology
Humans

Humans
Male
Movement - physiology
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Photic Stimulation - methods
Psychomotor Performance - physiology

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